Dr. Ballard's Presents Variations on the Ballard Beat
There was a time when dog food companies released music. The fact that this doesn't happen anymore makes me a melancholy man. Sure, Star****s can put out CD's with famous names on them to give out or sell, but that don't count at all, and Iggy or the Ramones on a TV ad counts less.
Something like this, and many other singles and releases in the same vein, are dripping with integrity, and other stuff, because of the originality and rear-vision weirdness of it all. Does AVON hand an original composition over to, say, Mindless Self Indulgence so they can put out a 7" single? Have the folks behind Depends undergarments landed Justin Biebre (the real Canadian spelling) to put out a short wax ditty? Is semi-retired Celine Dion doing a cover of Barbed-Wire Love for the TwoDaLoo?
No!
So all we can do is sigh, and get horribly drunk while sucking on a musk-flavored Life Saver and wonder how our lives turned out so utterly wrong, or something, and listen to stuff like this.
Released in the mid-to-late 50's and featuring the Herman Apple Quintet (Bix Belair on trumpet and Moe Slutsky on drums) on the Dr. Ballard label, recorded by RCA's Montreal division, so perhaps this was a Canadian-only release? Seems Mr. Apple was a Quebecois, as the only other release I could come up with from him was a Christmas album done entirely in French.
Four versions done in different popular genres at the time. Somewhat disappointingly, there's no lyrics here, just the jingle-music. Ah well. Have a listen and see if you don't end up with a cupboard full of dog food by the end of the day.
Download here:
Posts
3 comments:
Good Find, Mr. Panaflex.
I've never heard of that brand here in the US, so this was probably Canadian-only.
BTW, have you ever checked out Grey Calx's Basement of Curiosities?
http://basementcurios.blogspot.com/
I think I'd recommended him to you last year in a previous comment.
Very funny obit/blog profile. If you took out the "6'1" reference, it would probably apply to most of us who build collections like this.
Actually, I couldn't recall the last time I ever saw the dog food in a store, so I looked it up and the line went tits-up in '01.
Thanx for the Calx link!:
most likely I bookmarked it last time, got distracted by a fly buzzing around my head, and promptly forgot about it, leaving it sandwiched between links to "Removing tapioca pudding and blood from cotton-poly blend furniture coverings from 1957" and a seriously out of date article I read the first line of in a New York Times page from '07.
And thanks. My socializing used to solely consist of shoulder-shoving the guy digging thru the bin next to me 'cos his forearm was in my sight-line, but I'm getting better...
Good site! You doing a fabulous job. I really lik it.
best dog food for pitbulls
Post a Comment